Fueled by big data, cloud computing, as well as other computer network and telecommunication applications, there is an ever increasing demand for high speed telecommunication means. High speed optical transmitters and receivers (or collectively referred to herein as “transceivers”) that are capable of exceeding a transmission rate of 25 Gbps have attracted the public's attention.
While optical transceivers are gaining popularity, semiconductor photodetector (PD) design and manufacturing technology is often different and sometimes even incompatible with other kinds of traditional semiconductor device manufacturing technologies, such as those for metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors. As an example, a direct growth of silicon germanium (SiGe) materials on silicon material substrates can often cause a defect layer, laden with lattice mismatch between Ge and Si. This defect layer can result in leakage current and degraded PD performance characteristics (e.g., signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)).
It is beneficial to have improved device design and fabrication techniques that enable PDs and/or other electronic circuits using typical semiconductor device manufacturing technologies meanwhile reducing the adverse impacts on PDs' performance.